How To Play Flop
How To Evaluate Your Hand
There are three types of hands that you can have once you are on the flop:
►Made hands
►Drawing hands
►Trash hands
A made hand can be anything from top pair to royal flush. Bear in mind that a made hand must have at least one pocket card contributing to its ranking. Community cards of matching rank are not worth anything to you if none of your pocket cards can be combined with them to form a higher hand. You should already be familiar with the definitions:
Made hands: Top Pair; Over Pair; Two Pairs; Trips; Straight; Flush; Full House; Quads; Straight Flush; Royal Flush.
Drawing hands: Over Cards; ISD; Double ISD; OESD; FD; ISFD; OESFD.
Trash Hand: A hand that is not made and nor a worthwhile draw.
There are a couple of more specific definitions that will be used in the charts as well:
Monster hands: Two Pairs or higher
Monster draws: OESFD; ISFD |
How To Play Your Hand
Here you continue doing what you did pre-flop. You play aggressively with the very strong hands and you thread carefully with the weaker ones. To fully understand the rationale behind the prescribed actions outlined below you must understand the concept of the continuation bet.
| Continuation bet: You make a continuation bet when you continue your aggressive pre-flop action on the flop. Aggressive pre-flop action means that you raised pre-flop. |
The continuation bet is a powerful action because it renders your opponents passive and thereby prone to folding; thus making it possible for you to win the hand prematurely (without having to see the showdown). This is particularly valuable if your hand is questionable.
Monster hand: Cap
Top pair / over pair: Bet or raise once and after that only call.
Monster Draws (OESFD, ISFD): Cap
Strong Draws (FD, OESD, Double ISD): Bet or raise once and after that only call. There is no point in weighing pot odds against hand odds for these draws at low limit fullring tables. They will be favourable 99 times out of 100.
Speculative Draws (Over Cards, ISD): These are speculative draws which only are playable under certain circumstances. If you have raised pre-flop and there are max two opponents left in the hand, then you should bet in the hope of pressuring them to fold. However, if your opponents bet or raise you should call but only if the pot odds outweigh your hand odds. If not, you should fold. If you did not raise pre-flop, then you should check if possible, otherwise call as long as the pot odds are on your side. The pot odds must be higher than 6.8:1 for over cards and higher than 10.8:1 for ISD.
Trash Hands: You should normally check or fold if check is not an option. There is one exception though; if you raised pre-flop and there are max two opponents remaining in the hand, then you should bet in the hope of pressuring them to fold. However, if your opponents bet or raise you should always fold. |
How To Play Flop Examples
►Your pocket cards are Kc-Jd and the flop is Kd-Jc-9h. You have a made two pair hand. A monster hand. With this hand you should bet and raise at every opportunity. The actions of the other players do not matter.
►Your pocket cards are Th-Tc and the flop is Ac-Jh-2d. You have a trash hand. You only called pre flop so you should fold.
►Your pocket cards are 9c-Th and the flop is 8d-Qh-6s. You have a double ISD. The player before you checked. You should bet. If anyone raises your bet, then you should only call that raise.
►Your pocket cards are 9c-Th and the flop is 8d-Jh-6s. You have an OESD. The player before you placed the first bet of the round. You should raise. If anyone after you raises, then you should only call that raise.
►Your pocket cards are Ac-Qd and the flop is 6d-8h-Js. You have over cards. You did not raise pre-flop. You have two opponents left in the hand. The player before you checked. The correct action for you is to check. The player after you bets. The player to your right responds by calling that bet. You should call as well but only if the pot odds outweigh your hand odds. You have 6 outs so your hand odds for improving on the turn are 6.8:1 against. The pot is $15 and the cost of calling is $2, making the pot odds 7.5:1. In this case you should make the call.
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